Cambodia: Temples, Angkor Wat and amber horizons
Back in the
summer, my Cambodia trek with Macmillan Cancer Support had seemed a long way
off. I felt that I had now recovered quite well from my ME and was looking
forward to my upcoming trek during the autumn. Our camping trip in the Rockies
had gone well during the late summer and although I had suffered quite badly
from the altitude and heat I had been able to enjoy some reasonable trail
walking.
The
itinerary for the Cambodia Hiking challenge stated “We will walk for up to 9
hours a day. The terrain is varied as our route passes through paddy-fields,
dense jungle and farmland” with the trek finishing in the beautiful 12th
Century Angkor Wat. The pictures shown to us at the pre-trek meeting in London,
certainly looked beautiful. I was excited about seeing a new county, a beautiful
historical site, amazing wildlife and a people rich in their culture and
history. Although I did have a few concerns about the fact that mines had only
just been removed in the area and they asked us not to go off the trail if we
needed the toilet, just in case!
It was a
lovely group who travelled out that November day. We meet at Heathrow and were
soon a group of friends rather than participants. After visas were all stamped
our bus was on the road leaving Siem Reap for the countryside. We arrived at a
beautiful temple and after walking along a gently shaded track in the dazzling
morning sunshine arrived at yet another even lovelier temple where we stopped
for lunch and played games with the local children. Along the walk we passed
waving families at their doors, bicycles ridden by a whole family or even half
a dozen piglets on their way to market. It was a very beautiful area deep in
the lake area that surrounds Siem Reap. The monsoon rains had doubled the
waters of the lake overflowing and spreading out into the countryside almost
doubling its waters. Little children swam in pools and picked armfuls of water
lilies in pink and white, their happy shrieks resounding. We trekked through
rich green pastures and iridescent rice fields were locals worked in the sharp
Asian sun. It was only a short day but with the rising temperatures the
humidity grow and we were wiry and hot when we reached the promised pagoda that
night.
The temple
was a little higher up and as we circled its walls to peak at its internal
beauty through stolen glimpses our tiredness grow. We erected our tents and sorted
our belongings to make it our home for the night. Showers that night were
provided in matted areas containing a large tub and small dish. With strict
instructions not to use more than five little scoops to wash with. Then it was
over to a most luxurious looking mess tent, with cushions instead of chairs and
a meal of barbequed squid and chicken on little sticks and the most beautifully
spotted watermelon.
We rose
early to the sounds of the monks preparing for a day of pray, the heat and
humidity already rising. Children
dressed in blue were arriving for their school day. They attend their lessons
in open sided classroom with a blackboard in the middle. The girls wearing a
white blouse and blue skirt and the boys in blue shorts. We packed our day bags
and filled our water bottles and after a short briefing we were off.
Today we
were joined by a cart and oxen to carry our lunch and supplies for the day. It
was a long tiring day of dusty tracks often lines by the welcoming faces of locals
and shared by scooters and bicycles on their way to market. The scoters packed
with crates of piglets or produce and the bikes ridden by as many as 5
occupants, with father standing on the peddles, mother on the seat and 2 or 3 half
clothed children connected somehow to the frame or the parents. Cambodia is a
beautiful country, green and lush, full of wildlife; flowers and butterflies. We had been briefed not to leave the tracks as
they had only recently been cleared of mines but were less ready to realise
that this had only been the previous month as the sign informed us. One has to
remember that trekking is real adventure and only somethings are planned for,
that’s what makes these treks so exciting and special.
Cambodia,
once known as the Khmer Empire, has been occupied by France, Thailand, and
Japan and at the end of the Vietnam War by the Khmer Rouge. The people suffered greatly at the hands of
the Khmer Rouge regime. They tried to force the country back into the middle ages,
led by their Marxist leader Pol Pot. Nearly two million citizens died from
executions, disease, starvation and forced labour in the countryside. Finally a
war with Vietnam that led to peace efforts from the United Nations gave Cambodia
back to its citizens and peace was restored. Unfortunately it had taken a terrible
war to resolve these turbulent times and the people had continued to suffer massively.
We stopped for lunch
under the shade of trees, it was in fact rather muddy here as we had at times
waded through large areas of fairly deep water, a reminder that the monsoon had
been fairly recent. The flowers are beautiful in Cambodia, colourful and very
lovely. I enjoyed the butterflies too, with wings the size of small birds, they
darted along in the fields we passed. Families worked in damp fields and hung
out of glassless windows from their wooden houses. These houses are built on
stilts so when the rains come they are never flooded. They are all made from
natural materials and blend perfectly with the landscape. It’s a poor country
but very rich in both its nature and the warmth of its people.
After a
long day of heading north we came to a lovely camping spot under the trees at
the next pagoda at Wat Preash Bat Bun Tham. We put
our tent up without the fly sheets as the air was hot and humid, but we soon had
to return to them and cover our belongings. Big drops of rain came before the
rumbles of thunder, a storm that never arrived with us, just flashes in the
night sky, telling of a storm a long way off. We enjoyed our evening meal, patched up our
rapidly disintegrating feet as blisters popped up like poppy fields in summer
all over them. We covered them in tape and blister plasters but our feet were
constantly damp in the humid atmosphere. Whatever we did, the blisters came and
our feet looked more like those of pilgrims than trekkers.
Leaving our
camp we came to village where a young man beamed a knowing smile. He talked to
one of our guides who laughed and announced that we had been offered a challenge.
“Would anyone like to eat a chili, they are the hotter chilies in the world” he
asked. Well, I’m always up for a challenge and so I ate one, as he added “it needs
to be chewed and swallowed”. Which I promptly did, smiling back and advising
him that they were very good and not too hot. One of the other trekkers thought
he would have a go too after my success but his ended up on the road and he
spent most of the morning swigging water. Laughter is the best medicine they
say and it kept us all going. Locals
were selling petrol for scoters along the tracks, school children walked to
school or ran to wave from the roadside at school entrances. It’s a country of
simple life, laughter and kindness. Every face full of love and the wonders of
seeing the world through new eyes.
We walked
all day in the heat up endless cow-cart tracks, I never seemed to catch up with
anyone else. Paddy fields lay either side of us with wide views across them
towards the low mountain of Phnom Kulen. Finally we arrived at the ruins of a temple hidden
in the trees. It was a peaceful place and good to be out of the sun for a
while. As we explored the fallen stones, covered by an age of plant growth and
tangled vines times seemed to peel away. It was as if we were the first to discover
this temple, so little known and visited. A privilege to step along the walls
and libraries built and occupied by ancient Cambodian monks. We left Beng Mealea in an even wearier state,
the long day and sore feet we catching up with us all and I was getting even
slower a remembered tremble inside me, stirring. Oh, how pleased we all were
when we saw a coach waiting for us to transfer us to our camp so way off.
Another
night of heat and tiredness, but in the most beautiful and serene place yet
again. Our food was always wonderful, but very strange. The funny thing was
that our trek doctor had told us on the first day not to eat anything that was
raw but the crew encouraged us to eat the beautifully prepared melon that that
gave us most nights. Our lunches were always in little boxes and contained a
little bit of everything, beautifully prepared but cold. We often felt worried
to be eating such food in view of the children who waited for scrapes, so we
ate some and let them carry off the rest.
I think
this camp was the most beautiful, it was once again a pagoda, this time more
open and not in the trees like the others. The monks lived and worked on site
and seemed to have family members there too, but I may have been wrong. These
people may just have been from the village and have come up to have a look at
us. I painted a little picture and gave it to them. They were intrigued how I
did this and excited to see the finished picture as they had been watching me
from a lofty position on a little set of steps.
It was
always to wake to the sound of prayer but being very tired I wasn’t too sure
about being woken at 4.30 am by the sound of loud gongs clanging. I looked up
at the star filled sky, unable to sleep any longer as the monks started to
chant prayers from nearby. Then the penny dropped as shooting stars crossed the
night sky, I would never be in this moment again, it was very special and I had
to embrace it. A new dawn brought a warm, pink glow to welcome the day and
warm the tent. One by one we began our tent partner chatter and then the zips
started opening as everyone made their way to the toilets. These were like the
wash rooms usually, made from colourful matting although occasionally there was
also a basic toilet on site. On this occasion there was and as the group toilets
were busy and we were ready to leave, I popped off to use that one. Who should
be sharing it but a very large, black tarantula? I bet a hasty retreat, you knew
know what next to expect.
I knew by
now that my ME was going to make the next few days very difficult for me and
the trek was probably going to set my recovery back by months or even years. But
I was here now and this was my chosen challenge in life, the path that I had
decided to walk even if others had thought it unwise. Leaving campo that day I was in a pickle and
my mind and body was well pickled. The guides had waited for me as I was last
to leave camp and there I was muttering something and huge black spiders attacking
me in the toilet and that my hand had stopped working so I couldn’t put my
clothes on, everything was inside out and very dirty. There was a market in the
village as we walked through it, then just a very long climb to the top of the
mountain. I couldn’t feel my hands and the feeling in my feet came and went, while
my heart beat like that of a giant mouse, fast and furious.
At the top
of the mountain everyone was off visiting the Big Buddha, I never did see the
Buddha and said “I said something about I could live without seeing a Big Buddha”.
In fact I was just too exhausted and they knew all too well that I would have
done anything normally to see such wonders. I slept instead of eating lunch and
the camp doctor decided I was in no state to continue walking for the
afternoon, so I continued in the support vehicle and tried to sleep on the
bumpy track. It wasn’t what I wanted to happen but now it had I needed to rest
and hope I would recover somewhat.
There are
always plenty of stops along the way on these treks and this one was no
different, so we stopped and waited for the others to catch up. The ground crew had made their way ahead too
and spent the time jumping around the grass with empty water bottles and
filling them with the biggest centipedes you have seen in your life. These
monsters I was told would be their super, fried until crispy and enjoyed as a
bit of a treat. My friends made their way up to our resting place and refilled
their water bottles, but when it was time to leave the doctor still refused my
wish to join them on the last part of the walk into camp. He wasn’t taking any
chances.
The River
of a thousand Lingas is very beautiful and there are little wooden platforms to
camp on near to the river. Quite a few of the group went down to the water to
swim and mess about. Most of us had a tummy bug and some were feeling unwell.
It was here that one of the girls had decided to return to Siem reap as she
felt so bad. It was a lovely place to be but not if you were feeling poorly.
The river
bed here has many very beautiful and intricate carvings on the rocks that form
the river bed itself. Here the waterfalls flow fast over Lingams, which are
mostly phallic symbols of the Hindu god Shiva. It’s a very special place, the carvings
being made in the river during the 11th century. The river flows all
the way down to the Siem Reap river and then into the great lake, finally
passing the Angkor temple complex on the plains below.
There are many
sculptures of Hindu mythology here too and wonderful sandstone rocks and
formations, these we enjoyed the next day as we pushed on down through the
jungle to reach the plains. It had been so hot all week and a light shower was
much appreciated walking the dusty tracks once again. It seemed such a long day
today and after stopping for lunch my wiriness increased to the point that I
kept taking tumbles into the little ditches beside the tracks. It was all very beautiful but all too much for
me. The paddy fields became seas of grass and the track my single perspective. We
saw a group of monks in their orange tunics walking through the fields towards
us. How peaceful they looked, another thing I know I would never see again. A
wonder of this amazing country. But the most beautiful thing about Cambodia
that will always stay with me is its people and their kindness. The faces of
true love for others as each time I fell they would come and ask why I could be
helped and when they were told that I didn’t want help because I wanted to
complete this walk myself to help others, they looked on with such compassion and
warmth, but also with shock that the crew would let me continue.
We arrived
at our last camp but sadly I completed the last part in a vehicle as even the
crew couldn’t cope with me falling in so many ditches and had said that if I
fell again enough was enough. So I arrived too tired to crawl to put my tent up
and lay on the ground asleep oblivious that I was covered in ants until my tent
partner and one of the crew arrived and helped us. They put my things in my
tent and told me to crawl in. I couldn’t feel my hands and feet and was in a
lot of pain but it’s amazing what a night’s sleep can do. And I felt able to
continue walking for a while the next day.
We had
stayed the night on the campus of a larger school as now we were heading towards
Angkor Wat and a more populated area. The children visited us in the morning
collecting bottles in large sacks to sell for recycling and a few riel, even
the paper money is worth next to nothing.
The road
was busy and hot as we passed a sugar maker boiling up the cane mix to pack in
little grass packets. While we were stopped here watching the process, all clad
in our bright Macmillan T shirts a car drew up and out go a couple. To our very
great surprise it was Ciaran Devane Macmillan’s Chief Executive on his holiday
and he was so delighted, surprised and honored to meet us all, even if we were
rather dirty and smelly. Taking a smaller track into Angkor Wat with visited one
of the beautiful temples for group pictures and enjoyed a lovely lunch before
returning to the hotel for a well-earned shower. I never did visit the main complex as I was
just too tired but I did have a little look at the temple that’s covered in ancient
vines and bought a few presents in the little market.
Angkor Wat
is probably the largest religious site in the world, consisting of many complex
and uniquely designed temples over a vast area, located just outside Siem Reap.
It was constructed in the 12th century by the Khmer Empire originally
as a Hindu temple but later evolved into a Buddhist temple. The name Angkor Wat
means “City of Temples” and that’s exactly what it is. A huge complex of extravagantly
decorated temples covering about 400 acres. Although Angkor Wat was dedicated
to the god Vishnu, it became the king’s state temple and also the capital city.
The city was used up until the 16th century although it was never
completely abandoned but of it slowly became overgrown and its sheer size had
not been realised by the west until more recently.
I returned with
a tropical form of salmonella and was on antibiotics for a month but it took a
lot longer to recover from my ME and spent the next year improving once again.
When asked if I’ve had enough of trekking by my doctor he always knows the
answers going to be “Please can I do another one”?
